


made for sweethearts

by skioctober



Series: ode to self-indulgence [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas AU, F/M, Meeting the Parents, Poor James, Sarah and Alyssa are there for the booze, Self-Insert, Steve and Anna are Christmas nuts, or the one parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 11:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19005361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skioctober/pseuds/skioctober
Summary: “I love him, too.”These words are spoken softly, only for Sarah to hear. She's been holding them close to her heart for weeks now, but they are the absolute truth.She's in love with Steve Rogers.





	made for sweethearts

**Author's Note:**

> This scene gave me so much grief. Weeks spent trying to figure out where to start it, if it would be more than one chapter, who all would feature in it, would it include NYE...
> 
> I decided to gloss over NYE (I headcanon that the boys took Sarah and the girls to see the ball drop, and while Steve and Alyssa have their romantic kiss, Sarah and Anna kiss James on either of his cheeks, very cute) and keep this as a oneshot. I'm ultimately pleased with how it turned out.
> 
> Title is from Dean Martin's "A Marshmallow World", which I listened to A LOT while writing this.
> 
> As always, I hope y'all enjoy and please feel free to share your thoughts on this!

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“Don't y'all think you've done enough decorating?”

Alyssa's dry query goes largely unacknowledged, mostly because Steve and Anna are too deep into their holiday festivities to be pulled back.

They're also toasted on Sarah's spiked eggnog. Which is baffling because Anna hates eggnog and always has. Alyssa suspects she only drank it to avoid hurting Sarah's feelings, and then simply got carried away.

Since her sister and boyfriend are continuing to ignore her, Alyssa turns back to her glass of wine.

She's never particularly liked the stuff, but Sarah Rogers is apparently the queen of mulled and spiced wines. Eager to please Steve and make a good impression, Alyssa had forced herself to drink it – and had been hooked.

So now she sits at the small dining room table next to Sarah, the two of them pleasantly tipsy and observing the Yuletide cheer exploding all over the house.

Steve's late father, Joseph, had been nutty for the holiday season, too, and had passed that along to his son.

Alyssa marvels that she managed to find someone as obsessed with Christmas as her sister, and resigns herself to future holidays filled with their unstoppable tirade of jolliness.

“There's no stopping them now,” Sarah says, picking up a sugar cookie and nibbling on it. “Stevie's always been wild over Christmas, he'll keep going until he passes out.”

“Anna's the same way, and she'll start the day after Halloween. I have to avoid her for, like, two weeks before I can stand to be around her.”

Sarah laughs. “There are worse things. You're very close, the two of you?”

“Oh, yeah.” Alyssa watches with profound affection as Anna stretches futilely to hang an ornament, losing her balance and nearly toppling the tree onto Steve. “And the older we get, the closer we are. She's my best friend.”

“I'm glad to hear that.” Sarah pats her on the hand. “Steve and James are that way, too. They weren't born brothers, but you'd never know that just by looking. They get each other into trouble, and always get each other out.”

“James treats you like you're his mama,” Alyssa says, eyes twinkling.

“Of course he does.” Sarah nods sharply. “I helped raise him. Just like Stevie minds his manners with Winnie. We raised our boys together, and Becca, too. We're all family.”

Alyssa smiles and parrots, “I'm glad to hear that.”

“I like you, dear.” Sarah sets aside her glass, takes advantage of the quiet moment to address something important. “Steve's only been in love once, you know. Maybe he's told you. She died when they were still young, barely out of high school, and it broke his heart to pieces. He's been out a few times since then, but you're the only one he's called to tell me about, the only one he's brought home to meet me. That means something.”

Alyssa swallows, the nervousness she'd pushed down flaring briefly.

She did know about Peggy, about how she'd been the only one to see Steve for who he was underneath his sickly body.

Peggy had known right away what kind of man Steve Rogers really was, and she was the first person outside his family to love him for it.

At first, during that talk, Alyssa had felt a little insecure. It was plain as day on Steve's face that he still loved Peggy, that she still held a place in his heart of tender regard, but ultimately Alyssa was grateful.

Anyone who could see the truth of Steve's character and love him no matter what was a person Alyssa respected.

“He told me about Peggy,” she murmurs. “I'm glad he had someone who loved him that way. Steve's a good man, a really good, honest, caring man, and I'm so lucky to have him. Sometimes I still can't believe he's real.”

Her eyes find Steve as she talks, and she watches him trying to untangle the lights that have snaked around his arms so he can wrap them around the tree instead.

He and Anna have made a mess of things, are decorating the tree wildly out of order, but the pink on his cheeks from the alcohol, the lively smile in his eyes, warms her from the inside out.

“I love him, too.”

These words are spoken softly, only for Sarah to hear. She's been holding them close to her heart for weeks now, but they are the absolute truth.

She's in love with Steve Rogers.

“I know,” Sarah says, smiling in that knowing way mothers do. She takes Alyssa's hand in hers and squeezes gently. “I see it on your face every time you look at him, hear it in the way you speak to him. It puts me at ease, knowing you two have each other. You'll be happy a long, long time.”

Alyssa feels the tears welling up, but they pass. Steve was right, she'd had nothing to be nervous about. Sarah is lovely, and so welcoming of her. Sarah's approval settles the last of her misgivings.

“Thank you. I'm glad we came up here.”

“So am I. Christmas would have been very dull around here, with Winnie and Becca down in Charleston.”

“You and James's mom share this house, right?”

Sarah nods, polishing off her cookie. “We do. And typically we have our holiday get-togethers here. Kyle's parents were insistent on having them down for Christmas, though, and it was a good time for them to meet Winnie.”

“I'm surprised James didn't want to go with them instead.”

Presently, rather than spending Christmas with his mother, sister, and future brother-in-law, James Barnes is seated on the sofa and rather aggressively stringing popcorn for the tree.

Or trying to.

It's a difficult task with only one arm. He's sort of managing, stabbing each piece of popcorn through with the needle, then using his teeth to hold the string in place so he can pull the pieces down the line.

The true challenge, it seems, is in fending off the playful swipes of Winnifred's cat, Darla. The ragdoll is beautiful, and very sweet, but just now her attention is zeroed in on the popcorn string.

About the third time she bats at it, her claw snags on a piece of popcorn and yanks the entire thing out of James's hand, which of course sends him into a fit of furiously mumbled half-curses as he attempts to reclaim his project.

Anna ends up coming to his rescue, and while the popcorn string is recovered, Alyssa and Sarah return to their conversation.

“Well, Kyle is a nice young man. He's smart, hard-working, very polite. He loves Becca to pieces, I can tell, and it's not that he and James don't get along. I think it's that James has been through so much the last few years, and he's so protective of Becca since their father died. I think Kyle is just a little intimidated by him, and James probably thought it would be easier if he just came here for Christmas.”

Alyssa frowns. “That's so sad.”

“Not as sad as it seems. This is home for him, too, and I'm happy to have both of my boys here for Christmas.”

“That's true. I guess as long as he's with people who care about him, it doesn't matter where he is.”

“There you go.”

They both look over when a cheer goes up from the living room.

Steve and Anna seem to have finally completed the tree. It's strange to be decorating on Christmas Eve, but they'd all arrived the day before and Sarah has been saving the bulk of it for Steve to enjoy.

The tree itself is a convoluted mess of lights and tinsel, ornaments homemade and store-bought alike, and the mangled, half-chewed popcorn string.

Garland droops over the mantel and curtain rods, the Christmas village looks as if it was put together by a six-year-old on a sugar high, and the stockings are pinned sloppily over the fireplace.

It lacks all of Anna's usual style and attention to detail, but given that they're both still drunk it's to be expected.

The brilliant, self-satisfied grins on their faces more than make up for it, but their energy is starting to tire Alyssa out.

“Is it too early to put them to bed?” she asks, only half-joking.

Sarah laughs. “Since it's barely eight o'clock, I'd say so. Why don't we put on a movie and see if that will settle them down?”

“Worth a shot.” Bringing her wine glass with her, Alyssa follows Sarah into the room. “Hey, you merry elves, let's watch a movie.”

Steve looks down at her and positively beams, the expression so sweet she can't help but stretch up to press a kiss to his lips.

“Awwwwwwww,” Anna drawls obnoxiously, leaning so far over the back of the sofa she nearly falls into James's lap. “Y'all kissed under the mistletoe!”

“Shut up,” Alyssa says, without any heat, but looks up anyway. Sure enough, hanging from the doorway is a tiny, scraggly sprig of mistletoe. “Oh.”

Steve leans down close, whispering conspiratorially. “I hung that there earlier so _they_ would get caught, but then I forgot.”

Alyssa can't help it, she bursts into laughter. This sweet, silly man. What is she going to do with him?

“Backfired on you, did it?”

He grins, the expression somehow both addled and sly. “Mm, no.”

Ignoring the drunken catcalls from Anna – and the mix of yowling and cursing that erupts when James accidentally steps on Darla's tail – he pulls her in for another kiss.

“I'd say it worked out fine.”

 

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End file.
